Lost
by cornwallace
Summary: It's awful quiet and it makes me miss you.


Miles Prower never fit into this world, really.

The words WHAT AM I DOING HERE? might as well be his epitaph.

The words WHY ME? specifically running across his mind as he stands in the alleyway with his hands in the air and the sharp edge of a knife to his throat. The cold stainless steel against his skin almost sending chills up his spine, but he's too scared to move, not even that much.

Frozen with fear, he decides that he goes from one extreme to another. Overly logical to overly emotional. He wonders why this, of all things, is what's crossing his mind, but he supposes that your life in general is really all you can think about when you might be about to lose it.

It's kind of funny, kind of sad. But mostly, it's just ironic.  
He would laugh if his life wasn't at stake.

But it is. So, he doesn't move or speak. He doesn't make a sound.

"Which pocket?" the laughably ragged voice asks, obviously trying to disguise his voice.

Tails almost asks him "which pocket what?" But he knows what the guy wants. He really just wants this to be over. He just wants to be safe again, to go home. To stay alive.

"Back left," he says.

He feels the guy's hand invading his back pocket, pressing against his left ass cheek, pulling out his wallet.

He gulps. He keeps his cash tucked into his left sock for just this reason. But he isn't going to say that out loud.

Miles thinks of Sonic and wishes he was here. He had always been timid. Sonic was the only person who ever helped him gain any confidence. He was the only person that inspired him to be brave. Without Sonic, he was useless. Nothing.

At least, that's what he thinks. That's what he feels.

He's listening to the guy fumbling with his wallet.

His eyes closed tight, beads of sweat matting his fur down.

He wonders if he dies today, what would he have accomplished? He doesn't see what others might. He wonders if his life is worth a few measly dollars.  
He decides it probably is and his existence doesn't ultimately matter.

He's all alone in this world. That much is true.  
Sonic is dead. Sally and Bunnie and Antoine are busy.

Tails likes science. He likes reading and puzzles. His favorite video game is Tetris. Most guys his afe like war video games and titties.

Porn and getting laid.

He doesn't think about girls that way, as lonely as he's been. He really just needs a friend, a partner. No matter what form that comes in.

He laughs. He can't help it. His mind is going one hundred miles per hour.

Tails finally laughs at the irony, at the thoughts in his head.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" the voice asks him, the knife pressing harder against his neck.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"There's no money in this," the falsely tattered voice points out.

He's giggling. He can't help it. "I know," he says.

"That funny to you?" the thief asks, body pressing tightly against his. "Is losing your life funny? Is death funny to you?"

"No sir," Miles says, tensing up. "I'm just nervous."

A sharp pain kisses the back of his skull, a blunt pain spreading throughout his brain.

As he sinks to his knees, he thinks of his hero and his best friend. He wonders if Sonic would be disappointed in him.

His mind immediately says no, Sonic would still love you, still care, still understand. But he immediately tells himself to deny this. He tells him of course Sonic is disappointed in you. He doesn't exactly know why.

"Don't cancel these cards, you hear me?"

He will, if he can, but he isn't going to say that out loud.

Instead he just tries to say "okay," but can't manage.

Another thick, crushing blow to the back of his skull and he thinks about Sonic again, as he's falling forwards towards the pavement.

Sonic died of a heart attack. He practically wrote the book on physical fitness and his body finally caught up with him while running. The irony in the air is so thick, like it always seems to be.

He misses the life he had in Knothole. The good times in Station Square, in Mobotropolis, they never lasted long. They never did. He had tried so hard to convince himself it was okay, but he guessed it wasn't.

He was an optimist who so desperately tried to be a pessimist from time to time. He guessed he failed at even that.

Tails smiles as his face hits the pavement, his sensitive skin scraping against the concrete surface of they alley floor.  
Fur tearing away from his face.

He works out a math equation in his head and everything fades to black.

* * *

His cheek is tender, he notices as he rubs it in the phone booth. His cellphone was stolen, of course, but the criminal didn't find the money tucked away in his sock. He had to immediately get change to make the call, because nobody would let him use their phone unless he was a paying customer. And once he was, the answer was still no.

"So, we're all squared away, then? .. No, I can't cut up my credit card.. It was STOLEN... About, uh." He checks his left wrist only to notice once again that his watch was stolen, too. "A few hours ago, or so. I haven't used it at all today."

He pauses, listening intently to the receiver.

"Okay. All right. Thank you."

He hangs up the phone and lets out a deep sigh. He doesn't leave the booth, he just stands there, hanging his head.

The world seems to fall apart at the worst times. Everything you've held onto seems to collapse when you need it the most. This is how Tails feels at this moment. He feels lost and hopeless. As much as his brain is telling him it will be okay, he refuses to listen. He's too logical – he can't see the why.

Miles Prower doesn't know what to do. For such a smart person, he feels kinda dumb, he thinks to himself.  
Maybe he never knew what to do. He doesn't know. He really doesn't know.

* * *

"Another," he says to the bartender. He's not a drinker. In fact, he's never drank before. He can already feel his cheeks getting hot and his lips starting to numb, but since he's foreign to the feeling in general, he doesn't know to stop.

The bartender eyes him warily and pours him another shot of whiskey. He sips it and it hits him hard. He almost sneezes as he knocks it back, inhaling wildly, pleading the bartender with a raspy voice for a glass of water.

There's a pretty girl sitting next to him. A bat with white fur, smoking a cigarette. He watches the smoke curl upwards from her lips, she makes it look so appealing. He smiles, dazed. She notices, from the corner of her eye.

"Take a picture," she says, exhaling again. "Fucking creep."

"I'm sorry," he scrambles, eyes shooting back down to his whiskey. "I was watching your smoke. I don't, uh. I don't drink often. Or come to places like these. I'm sorry."

Tails feels bad and he doesn't know why. "Can I have a cigarette?"

He doesn't know why he asked that. He doesn't smoke. But he also doesn't drink. He guesses he's just trying new things.  
She scoffs and rolls her eyes and digs one out of her purse, limply dropping it on the bar in front of him. He picks it up and comically stuffs it into his mouth.

"Can I borrow your lighter?"

"You want me to smoke it for you, too?" Her tone is hostile.

Tails is confused. He doesn't say anything.

"Are you trying to hit on me? Because you're not my type."

"If you're going to be a jerk about it, you can have it back," he says, sitting it back on the bar and looking into his glass forlornly. "I don't need this."

She glances at him and raises her brow. "You're not trying to hit on me?"

He takes another sip from his glass of whiskey, almost choking on it. He struggles to get it down and chases it with water.

"You okay?"

He burps and rubs his head.

"No," he says.

"You're not okay?"

"No," he says. "I'm not trying to hit on you."

"What are you?" she snorts. "Some kinda fag?"

His grip tightens around his glass. He's infuriated. Not because she asked if he was a fag – he has nothing against them. He isn't one, but even if he was, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that. It was the hate that bothered him. The relentless cruelty of this world. Everything wrong with the world. He doesn't know why, but this is what breaks him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he says, looking over at her intently.

She looks back at him, unsure of how to respond. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Take it easy," she scoffs, facing forward again. "You're still in the closet, that's okay. I'm not gonna force you out, you can wander out on your own."

"No," he says, standing up and awkwardly knocking the barstool over, the loud noise causing everyone to turn their attention towards the two of them. The bartender frozen in mid action, wiping the inside of a glass. Tails stumbles a bit and catches himself on the bar, obviously drunk. He turns towards her adamantly. "What the fuck is wrong with you? What turned you into such a bitter, hateful person?"

"I just asked if you were gay, calm down," she says, blinking at him dumbly.

"It's not what you said. It's your fucking attitude." He hits every curse word with a higher pitch, as if he's a second grader, cursing for the first time. He doesn't curse often at all, and when he does, he means it, which gives it something of an unintentional comic effect. "You really think your better than me?"

His eyes begin watering, even though he doesn't want them to.

"Jesus, kid," she says, smirking. "Are you even old enough to drink?"

Tails hurls the glass in his hand against the hardwood floor, shattering it into seemingly hundreds of pieces. Dead silence until the bartender clears his throat and steps forward. "I'm gonna have to ask you to leave, sir."

"What is wrong with you people?!" he asks, choking on his own words. "What the fuck is wrong with the world?! Am I the only person with any love anymore? Any fucking compassion?! You tell me that," he asks the white bat. "You tell me that," he says to the speechless bartender.

Nobody says anything. He awkwardly fishes a twenty out of his right sock and practically throws it at the bartender before staggering a few feet away and turning back towards them. Tears streaming down his face. everyone staring.

"I have love, okay? I have love for all of you. And everyone seems to be content with becoming part of what makes the world so shitty. You all seem so content with treating the world as others have treated you. So content with becoming part of the problem, with learning to hate and ruin everything you touch. I... I was robbed today. I had a knife to my throat. I came so close to death today, or maybe I didn't. I don't know. Maybe that man was just doing what he needed to do to survive and maybe he really didn't mean any harm. If that's the case, than maybe he was better than you," he spits coldly at the bat, huffing in and out deeply. "Or maybe he was the same, but all I know is that you're no better than him. You can sit there and treat the world as shitty as it's treated you all you want, and there's nothing I can do about it. But not me. I have love. I have love for the world, and most the time, I don't even fucking want it anymore. But it's all I have. It's all I..."

Tails trails off, his gaze falling to the floor. Voice cracking, tears falling freely. He's broken. He doesn't know if it's his fault or the world's anymore. He doesn't even know if he can hack it, and even if he could, where to begin.

He's lost, just as lost as he's been for years, but the impact of this is only hitting him in full, just as an avalanche, just now.  
There's a moment of total silence in the bar, save for the football game on the television. The hometeam is losing. They still have a chance, but it's a longshot.

"How much change do you..?" the confused bartender starts.

Tails just shakes is head and approaches the bar again, face towards the floor, solemn look on his face. He plucks the cigarette off the bar. "Can I have a light?"

Bartender slides a pack of matches across the bar and he takes it and turns his back on them, stumbling sadly towards the exit. He struggles with pushing the door open and makes his way out into the cold dark streets and to the nearest streeghtlight. He plops down in the center of it and stuffs the cigarette in his mouth before looking up, directly into it. He wordlessly asks his hero, his best friend what he should do. If he has any reason to keep going. If he's truly broken without chance of repair. If he's disappointed in him. He knows he won't get an answer. He sighs and looks down into his lap, where his right hand limply rests, clutching the book of matches. Left hand dead on the pavement beside him.

He sees how easy it is to fall into the trap of trying to treat the world as shitty as it treats you, but he simply can't personally follow through with it. Even after everything, losing as much as he's lost, seeing the kinds of things he's seen. His parents dying before his eyes as he was a young child. The person who saved him, his best friend, his idol, the only person who filled that void and made it okay being taken from him as well. He couldn't bear to take his anger out on the world.

Tails feels bad for doing what he did, causing a scene like that. Making others feel bad. Taking his anger out on the world. He wishes it would just stop. He wishes he would just die.

The door opening behind him causes his ears to twitch. His gaze doesn't falter. He stares into the light even as he catches a foreign figure sitting down on the curb next to him.

"What's your name?" A voice. Female. Not the bat.

His face rises and falls back down and he catches a glimpse of her on the way down. Fox. She's cute. She looks concerned. He almost says Tails, but he catches it before he does.

"Miles," he says. "Miles Prower. You?"

"Fiona," she says. "You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for you."

"Ha."

"Are you all right?"

"I don't know," he says, laughing to fight away the tears. It doesn't work. "I really don't."

Her hand tightly clasps his without warning.

"You will be," she says. "I promise."

"Tails," he says abruptly, closing his eyes, causing tears to stream down his cheeks once again. He squeezes her hand tightly, returning her favor.

"Hm?"

"Call me Tails."


End file.
